Periwinkle is a classic spring shade and never goes out of style. The color name Periwinkle describes a whole category of blues that range from light blue to purple-toned blues which all have in common the lack of green components. The Periwinkle plant, whose lavender blue blossoms inspired the color name, blooms from March to June. When I was little every year around Easter my mom and aunt would go with me to a small stream in the woods. It was located at the bottom of a wooded hillside and the slope next to the stream was densely covered with Periwinkle, its dark leaves and the lilac-blue blossoms. Whenever I think of Periwinkle, it reminds me of this place and time in my life.

In spring periwinkle is especially pretty on the nails and there is a great variety of different shades from all kind of brands to choose from! For this post I got myself all appropriate shades I could think of – regardless of financial concerns. Sometimes you gotta be ready to make sacrifices in life 🙂

China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le has become a true classic (ring). China Glaze Fade Into Hue from the Avant Garden Collection (pinkie) two years ago is a little lighter and less purple-toned. Even more brighter is China Glaze Boho Blues from the new Road Trip Collection (middle). It’s one of my favorites this spring! Essie Bikini So Teeny (index) is also pretty light but has again stronger lavender undertones. I love all three China Glaze polishes and I can recommend every single one of them. I did have some issues with Bikini So Teeny though. After I had applied fast drying top coat (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri), some weird dark spots started to appear (slightly visible in the picture). Moreover, the polish stained my nails despite the light color. I was really disappointed because I love the shade in the bottle and I never read anything like this in all the reviews that are out there. After all, Bikini So Teeny has been around for quite some time now …

Essie Truth or Flare from last years spring collection (pinkie) has very strong grey undertones. For my taste this polish is too dark and muted in spring but I guess we can still put it in the periwinkle color category. And if you prefer more subtle hues then Truth or Flare might be a good choice for you. Essie Lapiz of Luxury (ring) is more vivid and very similar to China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le – check out the comparison of all the polishes below! Let’s move on to some more unique Periwinkle-inspired polishes: I am absolutely in love with the glitter crelly KBShimmer Periwinkle in Time (middle) which is accented by silver holo and violet holo circle glitters and holo glitters in teal, violet, marine blue and silver and a micro holo shimmer. And finally you can see Lynnderella ValenTime (applied over OPI I Love Applause) on my index finger. It is a lovely glitter topper with periwinkle glitter in it!

In this overview I also included OPI You’re Such A BudaPest. It is very strongly lavender-toned and therefore clearly stands out from the other polishes I’ve shown you here. I am also realizing now that I could have included China Glaze What A Pansy from the City Flourish Collection as well. It was one of my favorites last year! (I just compared it to China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le and What A Pansy is way more purple.) Do you have some periwinkle favorites? What do you think in general about this color for the nails? Let me know in the comments!

I also got myself Secret Periwinkle only recently! It’s really weird, sometimes (often times …) I buy so many polishes without thinking and then I resist buying popular shades for a ridiculous long time 🙂 I finally bought China Glaze For Audrey as well!

Thank you so much! It makes me very happy to hear that you liked reading it! I loved writing this post because the color name Periwinkle is relatively new to my vocabulary 🙂 In German we don’t have a separate name for this color because the flower Periwinkle is called ‚Immergrün’ in German which literally translates to ‚evergreen’ (in reference to the evergreen leaves of the Periwinkle). And it would be kind of disturbing and irritating to give a blue shade a color name that has the word ‘green’ in it … 🙂